10 Annual Partner Agency Conference

The Great Agency Conference was on October 19th, 2015, only a few days ago. To all those who couldn’t attend, you were missed. To all those who could, we’d like to thank you for attending and hope you had a great time.

The Partner Agency Conference went through a great deal in providing and presenting for Second Harvest Food Bank’s Agencies. In came Agency leaders and out came the Agents of Change.

It went a little like this. .

With a self-serve breakfast snack (make your own parfait), each and all sat down to listen to the opening welcome of Willy Elliott from the Second Harvest Food Bank. Next came Rene Schaefer from twin lakes church. Rene spoke about a young boy who gave out little figures to people, only wanting a smile in return. Each of the tables at this conference had small little dinosaur figures in hopes that these would have the same effect on the diners. After Willie Stokes gave a speech, in came Sarah from MHCAN. Sarah had presented a small group of men and women called “Shadow Speakers”. These speakers talked about their personal struggle through life the importance of agencies/food distribution, in their case- MHCAN.

The workshops were not something to miss. This year we had 3 workshops presented by our SHFB staff:

Agency Debrief: Kevin and Grace- Which had shown SHBF role with agencies.

Cal fresh 101: Yaceth, Sandy, and Sandra- debunked Cal fresh myths, and taught people how to get benefits.

Don’t forget the lunch! A buffet style make your own salad. It was delicious, the cooking team out did themselves. All the fruit, chicken, rolls and dressing were as fresh as they could be.

Lunch buffet ready for unwrapping

After Bob Norton came up on stage there was the “Food donor of the year award” to be handed out to Oroweat/Bimbo Bakeries USA. Oroweat has been supplying bread to the Second Harvest Food Bank and the less fortunate for years. After the awards, came the Cal Fresh Buddies peer panel. Joel and Sandra discussed with Denise (Salvation Army), Jennifer (Inner Light), and Luz (Davenport Recourse Center) the benefits of Cal Fresh. With them, we got to debunk myths and share light on how easy and helpful it is to apply people. With Agencies and Cal Fresh working together- who knows how many more people’s lives we’d change?

Oroweat/ Bimbo Bakeries USA award/group shot

The Partner Agency Conference was not something to miss. For those who did, you’ll want to come next year. Each Conference will have new things that will remind us why we are serving the community and help us to become even better at doing so. We’d like to thank ALL our agencies for helping the community and providing for the less fortunate. What you do is create memories and relationships with those you serve and create a permanent footstep in the locations you serve. In doing so- broken lives are mended, hungry mouths are fed- and the world slowly begins to change for the better.